Contact Energy and Australian parent Origin Energy are mulling whether to redeem some $2.03 billion of hybrid notes after Standard & Poor’s changed its criteria for assessing the equity content of such instruments. Hybrid securities typically have characteristics of both debt and equity and S&P’s revisions relate specifically to those currently eligible to be classified as having high (up to …

Television New Zealand and Sky Network Television may have to wait up to six years before their Igloo budget pay-TV service gets into the black, according to the state-owned broadcaster. The Auckland-based broadcaster doesn’t have any specific sales targets for the first 12 months, and Igloo will take “a number of years to build a subscriber base and to reach …

elecommunications Commissioner Stephen Gale will press ahead with a review of wholesale broadband pricing on Chorus’s ageing copper lines despite government plans to blunt price controls with a review of the entire sector’s regulatory levers. The Commerce Commission will hold a two-day conference on June 12 and 13 to test industry views on its proposed price path to cut the …